Another thing that sickness brings out in a narcissistic person is what I call the narcissistic brain F-word. Remember, narcissistic people are not psychopathic; narcissistic people know what the right thing to do is. They know what they’re supposed to do. You know that when someone’s sick, that you are supposed to step up and offer some care, that they’re supposed to care that someone’s struggling, that they’re supposed to break out of their selfishness and do the right thing. But they don’t want to. But the problem is, they also want to look good to other people. So, you see the mind F that’s happening for them, right? It’s one thing to look good by paying the check for a big group of people to have dinner, right? Then everyone thinks that they’re so generous; they’re still going to resent afterwards that they paid all the money. But that’s easy; that’s just a sweep of the credit card. Having to deal with a sick person may mean taking time out of their schedule and dealing with stuff that they don’t want to do over and over, over and over again for many, many days or weeks. So, as a result, they sometimes sort of short-circuit. They want to keep on that mask of looking good to other people, like, “Look what a good caregiver I am.” But actually, for all the reasons I shared, they don’t want to deal with a sick person. So, it means that sometimes you can sort of see this interesting phenomenon when a narcissistic person has to deal with a sick person. It’s similar to what has happened in your relationship with them all the way through, right? Mask on, mask off. When other people are around, for example, let’s say you’re in the hospital, and there’s visitors in the hospital or nursing facility or even at home when there’s an audience, they may play it being a very solicitous caregiver. But when they leave, it’s back to them being irritable and not doing what needs to be done. And this can be confusing and frustrating and heartbreaking. You know that they have this skill set in some ways to caregive; they even know what needs to be done. But when they do it, it’s very performative. They will do things like post pictures on Instagram of them sitting next to you in the hospital or seem so concerned when there are others around. It’s one thing when it’s everyday life and they’re putting this mask on and off, but it’s quite another when you’re having to rely on them, and they’re just turning their sort of pseudo caregiving as one more way to get supply.
Listen, there’s no way that the egocentricity of narcissism, with its entitlement, grandiosity, impatience, manipulation, victimhood, there’s no way that they can be caregivers. And they aren’t. So, counting on them when you are sick isn’t going to work. And if they are the only game in town for your caregiving, you’re kind of screwed because they can’t do it. Maybe for a day, but they can’t do it in the long term. And if you’re in a relationship with a narcissistic person and can’t or don’t want to leave the relationship or will still have contact with them, or you come from a narcissistic family system, let me give you a piece of advice: start laying out your plan B for caregiving because someday down the road, you may be wondering, “Well, what about when the narcissistic person gets sick? Then what?” Well, I mean, listen, there’s a range of responses. Some narcissistic folks are in full denial. Them getting sick doesn’t fit their grandiose self-conception of being unbreakable. Many narcissistic people become quite dramatic; their victimhood and grandiosity combine and kick in fully, and basically, it is as though they are the first people in history to ever get sick, and they are startled that the whole world hasn’t stopped because of it. With the communal narcissistic folks, they will turn themselves into the singular greatest crusader for this illness, and we will get the hourly play-by-play via social media of their illness journey. Other people will milk it for all that it’s worth and overreach in terms of how little they can do because they’re sick or how much they expect others to do for them. Somehow, once again, the hypocrisy, narcissistic folks expect others to be patient with them when they’re sick, even as they have no patience when others get sick.
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